Libertas Legislator Profiles

Name: Wayne Harper
Type: Senator
Party: Republican
District: 16
Email: wharper@le.utah.gov
Mobile: (801) 647-8401

Libertas Legislator Index Rankings

The following rating measures how consistently this legislator votes in support of individual liberty, private property, and free enterprise. To learn more, see the main index page.

To see the specific votes used to rank this legislator, click the link in the table above for any of the yearly percentages listed.

Sponsored Ranked Bills

This legislator was the sponsor of the following bills, which were ranked by Libertas Institute in their respective year's Legislator Index.

• SB154: Utah Communications Authority Amendments (2019)
  This bill increased the 911 tax on phone lines by nearly triple the amount, taking over an additional $5 million annually from Utahns each year.
  
  This bill passed unanimously in the Senate and passed the House 50-20. Libertas supports a "nay" vote.
• SB136: Transportation Governance Amendments (2018)
  This bill reforms the Utah Transit Authority but in the process, increases registration fees by roughly $5 million per year by 2020. It also empowers local governments to raise sales taxes by 0.20%, leading to an increase in tax revenue of over $100 million per year.
  
  This bill passed the Senate 17-10 and passed the House 40-32. Libertas supports a "nay" vote.
• SB83: Sales Tax Notification Amendments (2017)
  This bill would have required that companies that sell more than $500 worth of merchandise to a Utah customer provide the state with a statement of the customer's name, billing and shipping address, and the total dollar amount of the sales. This would have essentially turned out-of-state companies into tattle-tales. This bill passed the Senate 24-1 but failed to pass a House committee. Libertas supports a "nay" vote, because the state of Utah has no constitutional authority to deputize companies in this fashion that are not subject to Utah law, given that they have no presence within the state.
• SB198: Utah Communications Authority Amendments (2017)
  Prior to this bill, Utah had the 16th highest wireless tax rate. This bill put us at #10 on the list, by increasing fees by $6.72 per phone line per year, taking nearly $20 million more from Utahns for stated purposes of upgrading emergency communications infrastructure.
  
  This bill originally passed the Senate 25-2 and passed the House 55-17. Libertas supports a "nay" vote, because the state already receives significant revenue from existing fees and should not be allowed to take even more.
• SB82: Oversight for psychotropic medication for children in custody (2016)
  Dangerous, psychotropic medication is administered at a high rate within the foster care system—31% for foster care children are given such drugs, compared to 6% in the general population. This bill created a pilot program to provide oversight to the prescribing of this medication to foster children, in an effort to ensure it is only being given where necessary.
  
  This bill passed both the Senate and the House unanimously. Libertas Institute supports a "yea" vote, because parents need better information and oversight over the medication their children are given when in custody of the state.

View this Senator's official legislative page.

Does this page need updating? Let us know!